And in the latest revision…

My sister once asked me how Bridget Jones could drink so many alcohol units in one day (often upwards of 20, according to her diary). I explained at the time that a UK alcohol “unit” was not the same as a US “standard drink” as far as I could tell. I pointed to the fact that a single large glass of wine in a UK restaurant was technically equal to 2.5 alcohol units (250 mL at 100 mL per unit for wine) and thus exceeded the recommended daily intake for a female; a single pint of lager was 2 units and was just at the daily allowance. (I will refrain from commenting on how a country with such stated problems of drunken hooliganism still persists in selling alcohol in these quantities as the standard measure.) Regardless, imagine my surprise to find on the BBC today that they are further revising the guidelines to now state that a 250 mL glass of wine has 3 alcohol units. A bottle of wine thus contains 9 units, not 7.5, according to these new guidelines. Umm. Let me make a suggestion, perhaps. I believe this actually goes completely counter to the intended effect. Reducing the size of a standard alcohol unit to the point that people drink many more of them will only reinforce the idea that the guidelines are a bit daft. The shocking problems of public drunkenness in Britain are not going to be helped by this change–reform is needed but this is not the right sort of reform.